Search This Blog

Facebook!

RMJ's shared items

Friday, July 10, 2009

Not really a huge fan of "Weeds" (well, not the show), but I'd always had some kind of respect in reserve for Mary-Louise Parker. I guess it's only because of her role as a (sexed-up, now that I think about it) feminist in The West Wing, but you know. The label of feminism tends to make me like women, even if they are only superficially or tangentially related to feminism.

Anyway, I was disappointed by this set of photos and a ... thank-you note to men? Do they really need more credit? I shouldn't be surprised by the photos, especially considering that her advertisements for Weeds usually trade on her body:

Click for bigger images

It starts out fairly innocuous: with the other members of the ensemble show. But after the first season, it immediately becomes excessively sexual - she's splayed out on the web/bed, wearing a bikini, swimsuit, and high high heels, and naked, with a phallic snake. Women have a right to use their body as they choose, but I think it's sad that a rare women-led ensemble show goes from presenting the whole cast (with the black characters on the margins, duh), to presenting only the lead character, and then basically presenting only her body.

This is not Parker's first naked-esque photoshoot, and you know, naked photoshoots, in Esquire...not the end of the world. What disturbs me about this shoot in particular are the middle three shots, and particularly the second. Parker's face is not visible barely at all in these photos - she could be a stock model. She's been reduced to body parts - an ass, a belly button, a nipple, all without a distinguishable face. Even in the first and last shots, her face is half obscured, and the viewer's attention is directed at her ass/cleavage.

What's worse is her "thank you letter to men". The letter constructs men as the stronger sex, with little subtlety or dimension, with no qualification defending the strength of women. Here are just a few of the necessary and sufficient characteristics for men:

5 comments:

Very sad indeed. I think she's a gorgeous woman and if I had a body like that I'd flaunt it, but it's such a shame that her looks have overshadowed her talent as an actor. That letter is hard to believe too...I wonder if it's just playing to part of the Weeds demographic or what.

I don't really know what to make of this one. I liked Weeds in its first season, but after that, it seemed to just rely more and more on Mary-Louise Parker's character getting off with various other people, so I gave up after Season 3. Seeing this doesn't really surprise me, given the direction the show was going when I stopped watching, but it does disappoint me a little bit. I lurve beautiful women as much as the next person, but I lurve beautiful women with brains and talent even more. Wish Mary-Louise Parker could see that, too.

Please note:

All writing here copyright Rachel McCarthy James, 2009-2011 (unless otherwise noted). The views expressed here are solely my own; my writing has nothing to do with any of my employers or associates, former or current.